Letters From Rome on the Council

by Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger

Forty-Second Letter.

Rome, April 29, 1870.—What I mentioned in my last letter as a pamphlet of Cardinal Rauscher's, is a printed memorial addressed to the Presidents of the Council, bearing the title of Petitio a pluribus Galliæ, Austriæ et Hungariæ, Italiæ, Angliæ et Hiberniæ et Americæ Septentrionalis Præsidibus exhibita, and dated April 20th. It states that papal infallibility is beset by many objections and difficulties, which require an examination such as is impossible in a General Congregation. Among them is one of supreme importance, bearing directly on the instruction to be given to the faithful on the divine commandments and the relation of the Catholic religion to civil society.

“The Popes have deposed Emperors and Kings, and Boniface viii. in the Bull Unam Sanctam has established the corresponding theory, which the Popes openly taught down to the seventeenth century under [pg 490] anathema, that God has committed to them power over temporal things. But we, and almost all Bishops of the Catholic world, teach another doctrine. We teach that the ecclesiastical power is indeed higher than the civil, but that each is independent of the other, and that while sovereigns are subject to the spiritual penalties of the Church, she has no power to depose them or absolve their subjects from their oaths of allegiance. And this is the ancient doctrine, taught by all the Fathers and by the Popes before Gregory vii. But if the Pope, according to the Bull Unam Sanctam, possessed both swords—if, according to Paul iv.'s Bull Cum ex Apostolatûs officio, he had absolute dominion by divine right over nations and kingdoms,—the Church could not conceal this from her people, nor is the subterfuge admissible,[94] that this power exists only in the abstract and has no bearing on public affairs, and that Pius has no intention of deposing rulers and princes; for the objectors would at once scornfully reply, ‘We have no fear of papal decrees, but after many and various dissimulations it has at last become evident that every Catholic, who acts according to his professed belief, is a born enemy of the State, for he holds himself [pg 491] bound in conscience to do all in his power to reduce all kingdoms and nations into subjection to the Pope.’ We need not define more precisely the manifold accusations the enemies of the Church might deduce from this.

“This difficulty then must be most carefully sifted before papal infallibility is dealt with. The Conference we demanded on March 11 may do much towards clearing it up. But the question, whether Christ really committed to Peter and his successors supreme power over kings and kingdoms is, especially in this day, one of such grave importance that it must be directly brought before the Council, and examined on all sides. It would be inexcusable for the Fathers to be seduced into deciding, without thorough knowledge and sifting, on a question which has such wide consequences and affects so deeply the relations of the Church to human society. This question therefore must necessarily be brought before them, before the eleventh chapter of the Schema de Ecclesiâ can be taken in hand. It might, if you please, be separately treated. But, as it cannot be adequately judged of without a thorough examination of the relations of the ecclesiastical to the civil power, it appears to us very desirable that the thirteenth and [pg 492] fourteenth chapters of the Schema should be discussed before the eleventh.”

What first strikes one about this remarkable document is, that the German Bishops belonging to the minority—Martin, Stahl, Senestrey and the Tyrolese are of course out of the reckoning—are not represented here. Does this indicate a real divergence of view or only a difference of tactics? The former notion seems to me inconceivable. It is impossible that men like Hefele, Ketteler, Eberhard and the rest should have any doctrinal predilection for the system of papal absolutism extended over sovereigns and the whole political and civil domain. Certainly they too are so strongly opposed to the infallibilist dogma because it involves the mediatizing of all kings and governments. I can therefore at present discover no explanation of this phenomenon, and cannot allow any room for the suspicion that the persistently active curialistic influences have succeeded in dividing the German Bishops from the rest of the minority.

What will the Presidents do with a document so serious, so moderate and so incisive? What have they done already? So far as I know, nothing. It is a principle, and has now become an habitual practice with [pg 493] them, to leave all representations and petitions of the minority unnoticed and unanswered. The directing Deputation, which is intrusted with the entire control of the Council, feels quite justified in adopting this line by the papal ordinances.

The policy hitherto pursued by the Jesuits and the Curia was, first to extend to the utmost the comprehensive office of the Church, as legislator for the nations and guardian of faith and morals; and then, by making the Pope absolute master and dictator of the Church, to assign to him all that had been claimed for the Church, so that he—acting of course in the interests of religion and morality, but simply according to his own good pleasure—should have every office, person and institution subject to him, and that the final appeal in every cause should lie to his tribunal. Since all this can only be secured and guaranteed by the infallibilist dogma, the inferences on the relations of Church and State drawn by the opposing Bishops form precisely the chief recommendation of that dogma in the eyes of the Legates, the Italian Cardinals, the Spanish and Italian Bishops and those of the French who are ultramontanes. They all say among themselves, if not aloud before the world, “That is just what we want; our very object is [pg 494] to get the doctrine on the relations of Church and State changed, the independence of civil society and the civil power abolished, and the complete temporal supremacy of the Church—i.e., the Pope—at least gradually established.” It is not indeed advisable to say this as yet in such explicit and unreserved terms, but the reason why the infallibilist dogma is so opportune and indispensable is exactly because it implies jurisdiction over the temporal sphere, which the Pope can according to circumstances either leave unused and say nothing about it, or suddenly draw forth for use like a weapon concealed under a mantle. He has dealt thus with the Austrian Constitution; while he let alone other countries, whose constitutional systems must have been partly at least a scandal on Roman principles, he pronounced the Austrian Constitution abominable (nefanda). And any one, who wishes to examine the practical significance of this infallible judgment, need only go to the Tyrol and observe how it has been already explained there to the inhabitants by their enthusiastic clergy.

At the audience, when he presented the French note to the Pope, Banneville expressed the wish of his Government that the discussion of the Schema de Ecclesiâ (with the chapter on infallibility) might at least not be [pg 495] taken before its time—which was equivalent to saying, “At least give us time, for the matter is not yet ripe for discussion.” Hitherto delay has been for the interest of the Curia, for it was expected that the minority would wither away and finally be extinguished; they trusted to the power so often proved of the Roman solvents. The article of the Civiltà which told the prelates, “We care nothing for your talk about moral unanimity in matters of dogma, and shall make the new dogma in spite of your opposition,” was written in terrorem, and was meant to hold up before the refractory the terrible perspective of a contest emerging in the abortion of an impotent schism. The article has not in the main produced the desired effect, for the Bishops still hold together and bind themselves by writings and public declarations, and the number of those who can no longer with any decency desert to the majority threatens to increase. Now therefore it is the interest of the Curia to allow no further delay, but to bring forward the Schema at once.

The Bavarian ambassador has presented the note of his Government, which appeals emphatically to the attitude of the German Bishops who represent in the Council sound principles on the relations of Church and [pg 496] State.[95] It cannot indeed appeal to its own Bishops, for three of them are active and fiery supporters of infallibilism and the supremacy of the Pope over Kings and States. It was previously thought impossible for a German Bishop to desire to see the day when the Popes could again grasp the reins of temporal dominion which had dropped from their hands, depose monarchs, give away countries, abolish constitutions, annul laws and dispense oaths of allegiance. But this spectacle we now enjoy! For the pastors of souls must be assumed to intend to make dogmas, not for a mere pastime or for the enrichment of theological commentaries and text-books, but in order to reduce the theory to practice.

Pius did not say, when receiving the French memorandum, whether he would communicate it to the Council. But Antonelli has now stated that the Pope, though President of the Council, will not find it at all advisable to do so. That is only consistent, for every curialist [pg 497] regards the Council as under strict tutelage, and in fact only existing by the will of the Pope and living by the breath of his mouth. It is simply from care for their health that he withholds so unsound a document from his Bishops. Antonelli says he will not reply to it, as it contains nothing new, and merely repeats the note of Feb. 20, which is not strictly true. He adheres to his favourite distinction, “In theory we are inexorable, grasping, high-flying, as Gregory vii. or Innocent iii., but in practice full of forbearance and compassion. We take account of human weakness and blindness, and, if the Northern nations do not acknowledge the prerogatives of our priestly absolutism, and desire to retain their political and religious liberties in spite of our theoretical condemnation of them, we shall not force matters to an open breach and shall make no use of the old methods of compulsion.”